The Wallflowers Preview Songs From ‘Glad All Over’

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For The Wallflowers latest album, Glad All Over, the band went back to 1992 for the way they recorded their self-titled debut.

“It was important to be together in one room, recording live, interacting together, five of us in a room,” Jakob Dylan said. “That’s how we did it a long time ago. Easy to get off track a little bit, but we had it right the first time.”

For their sixth release, they didn’t bother demoing their music, but instead went down to Nashville and worked out the songs in the studio together.

Dylan didn’t even start writing the lyrics for their first single, “Reboot The Mission,” until they stepped foot into the studio. The minute he was finished though he knew he wanted to have The Clash’s Mick Jones guest star on the track.

Instead of just sending him the one song, Dylan thought it would be better to give him a choice.

“I thought it was a good idea to send him two songs,” he said. “I was steering him towards “Reboot,” but in the end he picked both.”

The other song was “Misfits and Lovers,” which the frontman wrote while walking to and from the studio. On his walk each day he would cross a bridge and think about what happens on top of it and also what happens underneath it.

Though the majority of the songs were discovered in the studio, some like the ballad “First One In The Car,” were ones Dylan already had written.

He admits this one, which appeared in an episode of True Blood, sounds the most like a Wallflowers song and has one of the most meaningful lyrics on the album.

“I think that’s’ a good sentiment, that God be the first one in the car and the last one out,” he said. “I hope that’s true.”

The band’s latest single, “Love is a Country” actually started out as a song for Shawn Colvin.

“I remember sending it to her,” Dylan said “I recognized that one line should a song in itself. I regretted it the moment I sent it to her.”

Keyboardist Rami Jaffee says that when the band went to watch her record the song, they were all crossing their fingers in hopes she didn’t keep that specific lyric.

“We were all listening for that line,” he says. “At that point when we realized it wasn’t in there it was a quiet victory. It’s all ours now, sorry Shawn.”